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Over the past decade, strategic communications experts have concentrated on monitoring and analysing the information environment, human behaviour, and activities of adversaries on the ground and in the digital arena. We are constantly trying to keep up with changing dynamics and the potential weaponisation of communication flows by hostile actors. However, there is a risk of becoming overly reactive; of focusing on the past, rather than imagining and pre-empting future challenges. It is high time to scrutinise our own modes of communicating in the face of these challenges. In a dynamic and evolving information environment, have we been too timid...

The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence is looking for young professionals, ready to support the COE with their energy, experience and skills! Join our team of volunteers and become a part of the biggest conference on defence and strategic communications in the region – “The Riga StratCom Dialogue 2019” and help us run the conference smoothly.

On 28 February, in cooperation with the RAND Corporation, the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence hosted a Hybrid Threats Table Top Exercise (TTX). The exercise provided a better understanding of the potential measures, tools and tactics which could be used in a hybrid context and how to prepare, identify and deter such threats. It tested different combinations of activities and gained insights into how they might fail or succeed.

This autumn, we organised a virtual competition "How to detect malicious use of video/photographic content online?". This competition provided an opportunity to meet talented young teams, who presented innovative concepts and prototypes aimed at countering malicious online activities, with a focus on altered images and/or video content. On December 10, the award ceremony took place, and the winning team from the University of Aveiro (Portugal) received a prize of 5 000 euros, provided by our main partner - Latvijas Mobilais Telefons.

Scholarship Activity: Conduct research on disinformation in social media, for instance with reference to malign influence in European elections. The focus may be on assessing key messages of disinformation campaigns, how tech and social media platforms enable new forms of manipulation, measuring the impact of automated (bot) or fake human-controlled (troll) user profiles, or using quantitative methods to identify patterns in adversarial communication.

The event celebrating Nations which are a part of the Centre of Excellence, took place on September 3, 2018. Flags of Latvia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom were raised.

Latest Robotrolling report by NATO StratCom COE: President Trump’s tour of Europe in July provoked ferocious discussion about NATO. Anonymous human-controlled English-language accounts, expressing positions in support of or in opposition to the US President, dominated online conversations. With the US mid-term elections approaching, the aggregate numbers suggest fake human activity is on the rise. The fact that NATO’s deterrence efforts in Poland and the Baltics are being mobilised in this way is concerning.